The gate at 4253 Experiment Drive sits just off Highway 182. Most people in Jay pass the University of Florida's research fields there without giving them much thought. The tract is 640 acres. UF bought it in August 1946 to study field crops, pasture, vegetables and livestock, and crews cleared about 300 acres of it in 1947 and 1948. On Saturday, Nov. 14, Santa Rosa County opens those grounds to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for Rural Roots Day, an agriculture expo with free food and free activities.
This is the event's second year. The first one was a heritage day. This one falls about a month after Hurricane Isaias, in a harvest season when the crops this station spent decades studying took the worst of the storm.
The Station Was Built Around Peanuts and Cotton
The site's full name is the UF/IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center, and it keeps two campuses. Its academic programs are in Milton. Much of its research and extension work happens at the Jay facility on Highway 182. UF's own 75th-anniversary history lists peanut, corn, soybean, cotton, forage and pasture work among the station's historical research, plus beef cattle feeding and grazing studies. That same history notes that the soil fertility, animal science, forage production and nematology programs were phased out in the 1990s.
Today the WFREC research program list covers cropping systems, variety testing, weed science, entomology, soil and water science, forest ecology and silviculture, watershed management, turfgrass, landscape ornamentals and plant propagation, and natural resource conservation. Variety testing and cropping systems are field work: deciding which seed goes in the ground and how the rows get managed. That puts them right next to the decisions north Santa Rosa growers are facing heading into 2027.
What Isaias Did to Those Same Crops
The county's farm economy is sizable. The Pensacola News Journal reported that crop farming was a $111 million industry in Santa Rosa County in 2025. That year's 57,000-ton peanut harvest brought in $24.4 million of it.
Isaias reached central and northern Santa Rosa County, Jay included, with winds over 100 mph. A follow-up PNJ report on Oct. 17 quoted Trent Mathews, a district conservationist with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, after a week of assessing the county's farmland. He estimated the loss at 85% to 90% of the county's cotton crop and 50% to 60% of its peanut crop.
The storm also hit the buildings and routes that get a crop from the field to a buyer:
| What the storm hit | Before Isaias | After Isaias, as of mid-October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Peanut buying points | Two in Allentown, run by Sessions Company and Griswold Farms | Both reported destroyed |
| Peanut delivery trip | About an hour turnaround | About three hours to buying points in Alabama |
| Seed storage | Holding seed for next year's planting | Storage facilities wiped out |
| Farm fencing | Standing | Four to six months of clearing and rebuilding expected |
Brandt Hendricks of Hendricks and Son Farms in Jay explained what losing the buying points means in practice. He told the Pensacola News Journal:
"Our local peanut industry is in a bind. Most of the peanuts grown in the three-county area rely on the local buying points in Allentown. This means farmers will be trucking their peanuts to buying points in Alabama, so what was an hour turn around will now be three hours."
Across the Escambia County line, an employee at West Florida Gin Company said its Walnut Hill gin came through the storm undamaged. Mathews said the farm community is looking ahead to spring 2027 to start working again, and the Florida Farm Bureau has donated fencing supplies and cattle feed in the meantime.
Why the Panels Are the Part to Catch
Two items on this year's schedule have no equivalent at a hay maze or pie table: a Rural Roots Farm Panel and a Farmer Panel. Both will take place a short drive from Allentown's buying points, on land that has hosted peanut and cotton research since the 1940s, about five weeks after the storm.
The organizers are also the people closest to the recovery. The county runs the expo with UF/IFAS Extension's West Florida Research and Education Center, the Santa Rosa County Fair Association and Santa Rosa County 4-H. Extension agents were out in the fields assessing storm damage on Oct. 14. The county's Oct. 26 announcement bills the day as a celebration of the "past, present, and future" of agriculture.
What's on the Grounds Nov. 14
The county's announcement, posted Oct. 26 after the storm, lists:
- Complimentary food and activities
- The Fall Heritage Pie Contest
- Rural Roots Farm Panel and Farmer Panel
- Educational activities and live animals
- Kid's Corner, crafts and a hay maze
- A planting station
Last year's first edition was held Nov. 8, 2025. The Santa Rosa Press Gazette reported that it featured livestock, free food, a pie contest, a demonstration by Santa Rosa Archery and a display of vintage tractors. The 2026 lineup keeps the food, animals and pie contest and adds the two panels by name.
If you want to bake for the pie contest, entry details are on the county's Rural Roots Day page. Check rules and deadlines there before you start rolling crust.
Getting There, and the Recovery Help Being Discussed
The research center sits on Highway 182, and the county is resurfacing and widening a section of that highway between Chumuckla Highway and Allison Creek Lane. Work was scheduled to start Oct. 26 and is expected to last until October 2027, with intermittent one-lane traffic during paving. If your route to Experiment Drive uses that section, leave a few extra minutes.
Farm families coming to the expo will probably hear about two recovery programs. Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson visited Jay with Gov. Ron DeSantis after the storm and announced state interest-free loans of up to $500,000 for Florida farmers, ranchers and growers affected by Isaias. According to Central Florida Ag News, Santa Rosa is among the eligible counties, and the money can go toward repairing or replacing fences, equipment, greenhouses and buildings, or removing debris. On Oct. 26, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency described its own post-Isaias assistance. It includes ELAP compensation for eligible feed and grazing losses and Emergency Conservation Program support for restoring fencing and damaged farmland and for removing debris. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Eligibility depends on each operation, so confirm the details with the agency or a qualified professional.
Many of our clients are farm families and landowners in north Santa Rosa, and this fall has been hard on the land they care for. If Isaias has you thinking through questions about acreage, fencing, timber or a family farm's next chapter, the team at PHD Realty is glad to sit down and talk it through. Contact Us anytime, and we hope to see you out on Experiment Drive on Nov. 14.
